It’s going to be hard to top Topeka Capital analyst Brian White’s comment to clients that the anticipated Apple iPhone 5 launch this Wednesday could be the “biggest upgrade in consumer electronics history.” But plenty of other Wall Street analysts aren’t holding back either.

Forbes’ report on White’s report sums up his take on the big smartphone news, with his projection that Apple could top the iPhone 4S pre-order sales of 1 million in the first 24 hours by a good 300,000 to 500,000. Apple is rumored to be starting pre-orders on Friday, Sept. 14. He expects iPhone 5 sales of 10-12 million units for the September quarter overall (Apple’s fiscal year ends Sept. 30.).

Yes, all this for a smartphone expected to sport a slightly bigger screen and thinner body, plus 4G LTE support.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this device could even boost the GDP by $3.2 billion in Q4, according to JP Morgan’s chief U.S. economist Michael Feroli, who sent clients a note titled: “Can one little phone impact GDP?” JP Morgan analysts expect Apple could sell as many as 8 million iPhone 5 smartphones in the last 3 months of its fiscal year, which would translate into something like an 0.33% percentage point increase in annualized GDP growth rate according to the Journal.

And these analysts aren’t even the most notorious of Apple bulls on Wall Street. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote to clients last week suggesting that Apple could well sell 6 to 10 million new iPhones in the final week of September “barring supply issues.”

Apple sold more than 4 million iPhone 4S phones last year during their first weekend of availability, and that was a solid increase over the 1.7 million iPhone 4 smartphones sold on their first weekend on the market. Munster's numbers are the result of surveying 400 cellphone owners, then factoring in other stats, such as the number of current iPhone owners.

Apple's stock price hit a 52-week high on Monday at $683.29, though it remains to see if the actual news Wednesday will do as much for the stock as all the rumors have.

Bob Brown is a news editor for Network World, blogs about network research, and works most closely with our staff's wireless/mobile reporters. Follow him on Twitter at Alphadoggs and connect via email at bbrown@nww.com